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I think perhaps the Internet is the modern day Tower ofBabel (or is it Babble?) where people of faith gather to be misunderstood. We all
come to this same place, but we are all speaking different languages. Let me
explain.

Last spring, during Bluebell Week, I posted from the woods.
This was a mistake on my part, as I tend to post hastily when I post from my
phone. Anyhow, I did it. I put up
a picture of Nicky holding a fish between two sticks and the simple message
“Gone Fishing.” I thought I was oh-so-clever. I was planning to check out for
the week. “Gone Fishing.” Get it? Am I the only one who hears the Andy Griffith
theme song? Anyway, I did check out for the week. And I didn’t check comments.
There, in my combox, people had a lively conversation about Nick’s inhumane
treatment of the fish. It went on for some time. Back and forth about how and
whether and why to kill a fish.

The thing is? The fish was already dead when Nick picked up
the fish. It couldn’t be inhumane because the fish was floating belly up when
he “caught it” between the sticks. So, they were arguing passionately about a
non-event.

A few months later, I re-posted my screen rules to the
MomHeart website. At the time, MomHeart was in the midst of transition and
author bios didn’t appear beneath the posts. (MomHeart has been moved to I Take Joy now, by the way.) I didn’t know that there were no bios and really,
even if I had, I wouldn’t have given it much thought. A commenter took some
time telling me all about how I would change my mind when I had children in
middle school or older. Then, I’d
recognize how they needed to learn their ways around the web and be tech-savvy.
In closing, she threw in something I really didn’t understand about kids and
tattoos. I imagine she was surprised to learn that I have five children older
than middle-school age, that my oldest is the managing editor of USA Today’s
sports social media site, and that all my adult children have tattoos. She’d
made some big assumptions without really knowing me and she read my words in a
different language because of her paradigm.

In a much more painful scenario, some grown women picked
apart the Serendipity Alphabet Path story (among a great many other things) on a message board a few years ago.
To this day, I wonder if they simply hadn’t read all the posts where I
discussed my 12-year-old’s authorship of that story or if they really did intend
to destroy a child’s perception of her work. Regardless, my daughter has never
written fiction again. Her dream
of writing children’s stories died on that message board. And her perception of
homeschooling mothers was altered forever. I have to believe we weren’t all
speaking the same language. If I don’t believe that, I believe some pretty
awful things about human nature.

People say things online they would never say in person.

And so that brings me to friendships. It’s a very tricky
thing to navigate an online friendship. We think we’re reading carefully. We
think we’re in the same paradigm. But it’s entirely possible we are not. It’s
entirely possible we are assuming things because that’s the way we “do
friendship.” I’m notorious for assuming a level of intimacy and kinship because
I’m granting that level. It’s a foolish thing (and I’m working on it, truly),
because I’ve learned that even though I think people feel the same way about me
as I do them, often they do not. (There
are rare exceptions and I thank God for those.)

What’s the takeaway from it all? Balance, I suppose. In the
case of blog posts, we need to read reminding ourselves that we rarely have the
whole picture (the fish was dead, my kids are older, the story was written by a
twelve-year-old for her little sisters) and we bring our own experiences, not
the author’s, to our reading. In the case of friendships made online, balance
means face-to-face, voice-to-voice conversations before plunging into
heart-sharing. And even then, tread carefully. Likely, it’s not exactly what
you think it is.

Give grace more
readily. Apologize more quickly. Forgive more easily.

It’s OK to assume the
best. Even after all these years, I still do. I’m just not quite as surprised
when it isn’t all I assumed it would be.

And balance also means investing as much or, preferably,
more time in local friendships, where every dimension can flourish and where
all the works of mercy can be lived in the relationship.

It’s worth it to work at relationships online. There is much
that is good to be gleaned on the internet. There is much to learn. There is
much to share. There is much to give.

Be careful out there;-).

this is an image i never imagined capturing.

this is an image i never imagined sharing.

this is an image i am certain many readers never thought they'd see here.